Joe's Garage

Frank Zappa is one of those artists whose output is so large as to be almost completely daunting. In my case I was lucky to have been handed Joe’s Garage by a friend and told to listen to it (and not just because I have the same name as the titular protagonist). Having now listened to a great deal more of his music, I now know that the album, as well as being an excellent listen in its own right, is a pretty good Zappa album to start with. Although no album can be truly representative, Joe’s Garage does showcase many of the things that made Frank Zappa such an inspiring and interesting character and musician.

Always extremely prolific, the two volumes of Joe’s Garage (Act I and double album Acts II & III) were released only two months apart in 1979, the year Zappa’s contract with Warner Brothers expired, and thus he was free to release as much music as he liked (Joe’s Garage accounted for three out of the seven LPs worth of material released in that year alone).

The album takes the form of a rock opera, dealing with a world in which music has been made illegal. The Central Scrutinizer, the mysterious law enforcer of this world and the album’s narrator (whose job it is to enforce all laws that haven’t been passed yet), presents a cautionary tale concerning Joe, an aspiring musician whose tragic life seems to be a direct result of this law. This is the basic plot, but along the way many interesting and absurd characters and ideas are introduced, so much so that the album sort of ends up as a comedy musical version of a Philip K. Dick novel – and I mean that in the best possible way.

A serious problem one can have when writing about Zappa is that it’s easy to misrepresent him as a ridiculous sexist, who made a lot of silly sex-obsessed songs and, taken on a surface level, Joe’s Garage certainly seems to fit this interpretation. One may point to the run of ‘Catholic Girls’, ‘Crew Slut’ and ‘Fembot In A Wet T-Shirt’ as evidence of the misogyny and ‘Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?’ as an example of the scatology.

But a side of Zappa that’s not explored often enough for my liking is his wickedly scornful satirical side, and the deeply critical eye he cast over current events. I suppose the best example of this is seen in the liner notes. Here Zappa states that, although the idea of The Central Scrutinizer seems silly, there are many countries in the world where music is severely restricted or, in the case of Iran, completely illegal. One can also read the whole album as a commentary on how laws are passed, and what function they serve. Plus, on top of that, there’s a hilarious piss-take of Scientology (‘A Token of My Extreme’), some reflections on human sexuality and a damning criticism of music writing, in the shape of ‘The Packard Goose’ (this coming from the man who likened it to “dancing about architecture” – sorry Frank). Even ‘Crew Slut’ seems to be a morality tale on the dangers of being a groupie, and how bands mistreat them.

So we’ve established it’s not all sex jokes and venereal disease. What of the music? Like all good rock operas Joe’s Garage works just as well as a collection of songs without the need for a detailed reading of the lyric sheet (which, incidentally, does provide some insight into the more intricate details of the plot). Musically, the album is a pretty intoxicating mix of funk, soft rock and soul that typifies Zappa’s more “song-based” output of the 1970s. If that sounds like a terrible mix, you’ve obviously not heard how meticulously crafted Zappa songs can be: the first CD flies past whilst barely putting a note wrong, keeping the intensity constant even during the slower numbers. If that also sounds musically safe then fear not: there are more than a few ridiculous time signatures and extensive use is made of a technique Zappa invented called Xenochrony, whereby an instrumental part from an existing song is added to a completely different song, to create a curious interplay between the two. In other words almost all of the guitar solos on Joe’s Garage are lifted from previous Zappa recordings and plonked in with no regard for key, tempo etc. It’s done well enough to not sound really obvious unless you listen for it, but it makes for an interesting, and musically adventurous, effect.

The second CD is not as instantly listenable as the first, but it does have some wonderful Xenochronic sections, where shifting, liquid guitar solos stretch on indefinitely, drawing the listener into a hypnotic state similar to the one Joe finds himself in by this stage in the story. It also contains ‘Watermelon In Easter Hay’, one the most poignant, beautiful guitar solos Zappa ever committed to tape. If nothing else, the album is worth it for this outstanding piece of playing that really showcases how great a guitarist the man really was. As one of the most interesting, eccentric and brilliant musicians of the 20th Century Frank Zappa really is one of those people one always means to get in to (I know I was). But don’t feel too daunted by his enormous output: give Joe’s Garage a listen, and then we’ll discuss where to go next…

Bob Dylan

No difficult second album here. For my money, this is an album almost without peer in terms of the leap made from first to second album.

It would feature in most people’s lists if they did a top 10 second albums of all time (alongside Fun House, Nevermind, The Bends, This Year’s Model, Chairs Missing, Closer and few others). Not only that but even approaching 50 years on Dylan will likely be playing two songs a night from the first side of this LP, not something that the McCartney would likely to be doing off With The Beatles or The Stones with any version of their second album you want to pick.

To think that Dylan was still only 21 when he was writing these lyrics is a mind blowing concept to behold. When you even consider that the performances and song writing in songs left off this album, recorded in the first session, like ‘The Death of Emmett Till’, ‘Rambling, Gambling Willie’, and ‘Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues’, showing us our first glimpses of Dylan the protest singer. Opening the record is ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ one of the most well known Dylan songs from the opening of his career mainly in part to Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover of the song which reached #2 in the USA. It is thought to be Dylan’s most covered song. Unlike many of his other protest songs, it doesn’t reference any particular event or injustice and it’s for that reason that this is the one that people latch on to the most. It deals with the general not the case of one particular person that may fade into history and is still being used as an anti-war and anti-oppression song to this day. It is said that Dylan wrote the first and last verses within minutes one night after a lengthy discussion on politics were it was concluded that remaining silent on an issue was tantamount to condoning it and it was a civic responsibility to stand up for other people’s rights. Borrowing the tune from Negro spiritual song ‘No More Auction Block’ (performed in 1962 by Dylan in Greenwich a number of times and to be found on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991). The song was published in folk sheet music publication Sing Out! making it a popular song to be covered and parodied even before Dylan himself had recorded it, this was key to winning round the likes of Van Ronk on the song who couldn’t understand the meaning of the title phrase. Now of course the phrase has entered the lexicon and the opening line even sees itself put forward as the question to the ultimate answer in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. How a scruffy 21 year old Jewish kid could have come up with a song like this that speaks for and to so many people across age, race and country is so impressive I can barely find the words to capture it. John Baez summed it up when she remarked that had Dylan never recorded another note after this song he would have still done enough for one lifetime.

‘Masters of War’ is a more direct song, not an anti-war song per se but more aimed at the confluence of Government and the Military in the US at the time. Dylan himself has said it’s more of a pacifist song then anything. Again the melody is borrowed, (from ‘Nottamun Town’ for what it’s worth) but the power of the song is in the sheer viciousness attacking those who profit from what was, and largely continues to be, American foreign policy (“Even Jesus would never forgive what you do” he spits.) ‘Bob Dylan’s Blues’ was the original title of the record and along with ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream’ (Based on ‘Lady Franklin’s Lament’) sees Dylan in a more wistful, nostalgic mode and could have musically fit on to his debut album with the strong presence of Guthrie hanging over them, as well as nodding to social ills. He was also experimenting with metre and phrasing of more absurdest songs and even funny lyrics on ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ and closer ‘I Shall be Free’ For example check out that final couplet at the end of the record as well as his witty reply to JFK or in the rambling tale of ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ he’s left on hold by the talking clock and the doctor remarking that he had had the same dream about surviving a nuclear holocaust but hadn’t seen Dylan there.

The first recipient of a 10 mark goes to ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’, written at first in a long poem style and set to music in late 1962. Not directly influenced by (It was performed live in September) but in the the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis and fearing that he may not have many more opportunities to write a song the six and a half minute stream of consciousness was recorded in a single take. Dylan has said that each line in the song could have warranted a song of it’s own and it’s hard to disagree. From the imagery of the black branch dripping with blood, the thousand talkers with their tongues all broken and the young child beside a dead pony it’s a song that contains seemingly nonsensical and yet profound statements that on other, later songs it could be argued are used merely for the way they sound not what they mean (more on this duly, of course). It’s often assumed that the hard rain is fall out from a nuclear holocaust but it is actually, as Dylan clarified at the time, referring to the poison that permeates the media and the lies that they sow. Although the line “Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world” is likely to refer to the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. A crushing end to the first side of the record.

The other side to Dylan’s bow at this stage in his career were long songs inspired by the album’s cover star Suze Rotolo, who of course can probably take some claim for helping Dylan to become aware of the subject matter of many of his protest songs. The first one on here is not just about her though. ‘Girl From The North Country’ with it’s simple strummed nostalgia was written whilst Dylan was in England in early 1963 and hoping that he would be seeing Rotolo, who had been sent to university in Italy the September before by her parents to get her away from Dylan amongst other things, in Rome later on the tour (ironically, she was actually already back in New York at this point and would be living with Dylan again within weeks) and channelling this in with nostalgic remembrance of former girlfriends from Minnesota (Echo Helstrom and Bonnie Beecher). Despite the homesickness and lack of Suze the song does incorporate part of the melody to ‘Scarborough Fayre’ the English folk song as well as the ‘Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine’ outro showing that influences were still seeping into him.

When Rotolo first travelled to Europe leaving a lovesick Dylan behind it inspired him to write his first great love song, earning a second 10.0 on this album from me. Unlike many of his other love songs there’s little in the way of spite or malice here (bar the line about wasting his precious time) just a guy tenderly coming to terms with the absence of the girl he loved with a richness of language ,set to another borrowed, lilting melody (Paul Clayton and Dylan’s people agreed a settlement and the two remained threads) with a slightly touchy and self-pitying manner running though it. We’ve all been there guys though right? If Rotolo felt uncomfortable about Peter, Paul and Mary signing a song that was so obviously about her that was nothing compared to John Baez introducing the song at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 as being “about a love affair that had gone on too long” confirming for her the whispers about Baez’s relationship with Dylan. She would shortly move out soon after and they split for good by March of 1964; Dylan covers this elsewhere.

The record tapers off slightly on the second half, the pleasant reworking of ‘Corrina, Corrina’ and the cover of ‘Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance’ don’t add that much to the record but with the wealth of fantastic material here it seems churlish to criticise it for that, especially as ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ and ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream’ were two of the late additions when the four songs, including ‘Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues’ were pulled. There’s also along with the Cold War commentary of ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ the underrated ‘Oxford Town’ which tells the tale of the first black student to be enrolled in University of Mississippi, James Meredith that September. Typical of the pace Dylan was working he had the song released by November as sheet music and recorded in early December.

A second album almost unrivalled for growth and maturity by any act in popular music, Dylan would go on to make other albums with songs as good as the best ones here but it’s arguable that despite all he would do in the next three and a bit years, four of his greatest ever songs appear here. It also help to revolutionise the concept of the album containing mainly original work by the artist; The Beatles would be doing the same within a year.

All this by a guy described as (manager) “Hammond’s Folly” at CBS in the lead up to this record.

You Am I - Hourly, Daily

Quite possibly the best kept secret in Australian music since The Saints had to leave down under and break London to get noticed, this album should by rights be part of the collection of anyone who has even a passing interest in guitar-based electric music – following on from the proto-grunge of debut Sound As Ever and the poppier Hi-Fi Way this is pure mod-pop heaven.

The (at that time) trio, You Am I, set out to both ape and update the sounds of the likes of The Creation and The Small Faces and with George Drakoulias (producer of a couple of Black Crowes albums and a number of film soundtracks) at the control board for two tracks and producing the rest themselves, they succeeded in releasing a disc at once both instantly accessible and consistently playable. An undercurrent of melancholia runs through the entire 15 tracks lending the whole product a pseudo-concept album feel but that’s not to say that it lacks cheer – to my mind it’s one of the most uplifting discs I own.

That melancholic air makes itself known from the off with the title track sharply focusing the listener on a semi-acoustic pre-dawn musing on the state of play in the world. Positive times arrive though when the alarm clock goes and our muser says ‘Good Mornin” and ‘Mr Milk’ rowdily voices his thoughts on how to win his love’s hand whilst on his rounds. ‘Soldiers’ ventures into the rose-tinted martial territory of Sgt. Pepper and ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ complete with band-on-the-green brass fills. Youthful swagger and the desire to sweep your would-be sweetheart off her feet are expertly portrayed on ‘Trike’ and can you really get enough of that organ and those handclaps?

‘Tuesday’ brings with it a return of the blacker mood (akin in tone to much of Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish) but the brass is still there trilling away to show all’s not as bad as it may seem. To drive that point home ‘Opportunities’ bursts on to the scene and brings with it the album’s first eminently singalongable moments. Next up is the three minute soap opera of ‘If We Can’t Get It Together’. Pass the hankies Bruce… Taking our minds once more off of the negatives in relationships we get ‘Flag Fall $1.80′, which owes a fair debt to both Lonnie Donegan & Pete Townsend. Stomping along in tenth place comes ‘Wally Raffles’ with yet more feedback drenched near mayhem.

Calming down and benefiting from the introduction of a string quartet things take a more serious turn on ‘Heavy Comfort’ as brief hope in a dying relationship is recounted. ‘Dead Letter Chorus’ recaptures some bombast before the best feel good track of the lot arrives in the shape of ‘Baby Clothes’ – you can well picture a young Jagger stalking around the stage sneering this one out. Reflection time on the penultimate track, ‘Please Don’t Ask Me To Smile’, that clearly foreshadows singer Tim Rogers’ solo Americana career that now runs concurrently with that of YAI. Completing the trip is ‘Who Takes Who Home’, an emotionally charged end of the party suburban love song. There’s a hidden track about five minutes after the end of this one but I can’t put a name to it.

In the 12 years since this album was released the band have become a four-piece following the addition of Davey Lane (also of The Pictures) to the ranks and have released the nearly as good (as in 9.5 out of 10) You Am I’s Number 4 Record and Dress Me Slowly, the less good Deliverance (a slightly mis-judged foray into alt. country), the near return to form Convicts and last year’s Dilettantes, as well as the enjoyable live album Saturday Night, ‘Round 10. Transcopic Records released No After You Sir… An Introduction to You Am I six years ago at which time I was lucky enough to see them live (for the first time since doing so when they toured this album) and even luckier to avoid The Vines who they were unfortunately supporting (good too on that bill were Rocket Science) but as a starting point Hourly, Daily is definitely the prime place to begin discovering these guys. Excuse me whilst I press “play” again…

The Beach Boys

There are probably a few people reading this that have the following timeline in their head about The Beach Boys; early songs about girls and surfing, Brian Wilson hears Rubber Soul and replies with Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson hears Sgt Pepper which drives him to attempt to better that and he goes so far off the rails he ends up with a sand-pit in his living room trying to perfect an album that until 2004 was the most famous lost masterpiece in rock history, Smile!. He then descends into mental illness and drug addiction. In the mean time the other Beach Boys tour without him and release ‘Kokomo’.

The gap between the abandoning of Smile! and that awful 1988 single is littered with false starts and under-appreciated cult albums. 1971′s Surf’s Up is the pick of the bunch. After the relative commercial failure of Sunflower the band were divided between the more artistic and experimental Wilson brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis and the more straight laced Mike Love, Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston who were more concerned with the band reclaiming their mid-Sixties popularity. New manager Jack Riley knew that the latter’s wishes were not possible without the Wilson brothers applying themselves. So he asked firstly the band try to engage a hipper audience with more politically and socially aware songs as well as finishing the mythical ‘Surf’s Up’ from the aborted Smile! sessions. What Riley ended up with was half an hour of the most fantastically produced, melodic and soulful music you ever likely to hear. It details the depression and fragile state of both the band and its leader as he faced the pressures of being required to write material and be dictated to on the direction of it in a fragile, drug-addled state of mind.

The record opens with the first example of Love and Jardine embracing Riley’s request on the shimmering ‘Don’t Go Near The Water’, certainly not a song title that would have featured in the group’s earlier work. After years of sun, sea and surf it advises us to be both sad and wary that human chemical waste “will make the ocean a bubble-bath”. Love’s other song on the album Student Demonstration Time’ is a howling, rattling update of Lieber and Stoller’s ‘Riot in Cell Block Nine’ tackling the contemporary issue of student protests and the shootings at Jackson and Kent State. It’s terrible; you’d be better served listening to Neil Young’s ‘Ohio’ on the same subject.

Al Jardine provides an apt metaphor for the state of the band with ‘Lookin’ at Tomorrow (A Welfare Song)’ that compares the position of a welfare recipient to a “freight train off the tracks” and ready to run and run once back on them. He also contributes the daft knockabout ‘Take a Load off Your Feet’ which I’ve always connected to Paul McCartney’s ‘Miles Away’ (from the same year’s Ram) in my head for their inherent throwaway silliness. It also kept Denis Wilson from having a writing credit on the album as he was starting to stockpile his own material. His creative dam would burst at the end of the decade on Pacific Ocean Blue however.

The Beach Boy who never gets any credit, Bruce Johnston, came up trumps with the sublime ‘Disney Girls (1957)’ with its gorgeous harmonies making it as an integral part of their back catalogue as anything else from the seventies. Carl Wilson provides his first two significant efforts for the band with the jazz-flecked ‘Feel Flows’ collaboration with Riley and ‘Long Promised Road’ which contains one of the most appropriate and timely uses of the word ‘soar’ in song.

All the Beach Boys albums that followed this one for the rest of the decade included the same traits as the songs that are mentioned above, executed almost as well. What sets this one apart is the final third, Brian’s third. The section that most captures the mood of the sagged rider and deflated horse on the cover. The only new song in it, ‘A Day in the Life of a Tree’ has manager Riley awkwardly singing, backed by a mournful pump-organ and at the end by Smile! collaborator Van Dyke Parks, an affecting, achingly beautiful, emotionally bruised yet utterly bizarre song about the perilous state of Brian’s mind as if he were a tree. No, you did read that right; this really does feature the band’s manager signing about being a tree.

Brian revisits ‘Till I Die’ that Mike Love had vetoed from appearing on earlier albums for being “too depressing”. It was written after a walk by the ocean allowed Brian to contemplate the vastness of the body of water and the inconsequential nature of his own life in the grand scheme of things. It opens with the line “I’m a cork on the ocean”. It’s often cited as the author’s last great song as he finally got down in writing what he wanted to say and fittingly it was recorded it in a similar manner to the lush instrumentation on Pet Sounds.

The record comes to a sumptuous close with Carl’s heroic melding together of the five-year-old demo of ‘Surf’s Up’ sung by Brian at the piano (It can be found, in full, on a 1993 box set and is worth the price of the entire package) with Carl’s new vocal on the first section and a meeting of the two versions for the final minute aided by an choral refrain of the rest of the band, a Moog and returning to the studio, Brian himself.

Kenickie - At The Club

So it’s early 1997. Oasis are a matter of months away from strapping Britpop to their motorbike and heaving its tired carcass over the metaphorical shark. Blur have already evolved their way out of the scene by indulging their Pavement fantasies on their eponymous classic. And Kenickie, with characteristically disastrous timing are about to unleash their debut album At The Club.

But we’ll disregard the inopportune timing of Lauren Laverne‘s merry gang for now and concentrate on one of the best guitar pop records of the ’90s. Like 1977, which was released a year previously, At The Club is an album that could only have been made by teenagers. From start to finish, it’s a blast of pure youthful energy. It kicks off with ‘In Your Car’, an explosive precursor of things to come. What follows is a mix of shouty harmonies, playful pop fun, and smart-arsed soundbites.

The album calls to mind a lot of the best bands of the ’90s. For example, the squelchy synths on ‘Robot Song’ are reminiscent of the first Mansun record. What’s kept At The Club fresh in the 12 years since it’s release is the fact that Kenickie weren’t just magpies; they took the classics and put their unique Northern punk stamp on them. I mean, look at ‘PVC’. It’s Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’ in pigtails (which kind of explains why Courtney Love had a soft spot for Kenickie).

And then there’s Lauren Laverne’s lyrics, which aren’t a million miles away from Suede’s romanticising of trash life: “We dress cheap, we dress tacky”, “We’re on our backs looking up at the stars”. All this, and we haven’t even mentioned ‘Punka’, Kenickie’s undoubted high point. In fact, screw it, it’s most bands’ high point. A joyous, glitzy three minutes of complete ecstasy on the subject of punk puritanism, it satirises and glamorises all at once.

The album finishes off on a downbeat note. The stripped down ‘Acetone’ dispenses with the power chords and attitude for a surprisingly gorgeous tale of trying to “dodge the sick stains on the street”. Well, I say the album finishes there, but it doesn’t quite. Where Ash chose to end their debut album with a revolting recording of them throwing up, Kenickie show they are clearly a far more demure bunch. They finish matters with the comic japery of ‘Montrose Gimps it up for Charity’. The song is basically just a load of kids larking about in the studio having a right old laugh at each other, and is about the most appropriate conclusion to the album really.

With At The Club, Kenickie gave us one of indie’s great under-rated albums. Predictably, they ended up burning out within 18 months of its release. They managed just one more record, Get In, which was a far more laid-back affair which sold far fewer copies than it deserved. In reality though, there probably was anything they could do to save them from an unsympathetic record-buying public which, lest we forget, was just about to embrace the horrors of nu-metal.

This was the way Kenickie was always going to end, and was a far more fitting way to finish that limping to an insipid third, fourth and fifth record like a lot of their contemporaries did.

Orbital II

Rave culture emerged with such a bang in 1988 that most of its vast following was left in an ecstasy fuelled daze for the remainder of the decade. It wasn’t until the early nineties that some of the producers of the era’s finest tracks began to realise the artistic potential of the acid sound. After all, the warehouse parties weren’t about standing around watching men with long hair masturbate guitars. It wasn’t about image or attitude or ego. It was about the crowd, and it was about dancing.

The people responsible for so many of those classic records were faceless. Many of them recorded under multiple guises and were never featured on the cover. But after a few years the rave population was eager for times to move on. One of the first acts to unlock this potential, and realise the euphoria of a five minute anthem across an entire album, was Orbital.

Their debut album Orbital was mostly a collection of disparate tunes, including their epic masterpiece ‘Chime’, but mostly connected by the slightly tinny sound created by the era’s limited technology. The following year that technology had improved, and with it Orbital’s vision. Instead of lumping some tunes together, the brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll worked on Orbital II as an artistic whole. The songs segued into one another, taking the listener on a sophisticated rave journey. It never pandered to the build-climax-build-climax blueprint of so many of the more poppy dance acts of the era – the acts that took rave into the charts a year or so later. It was dynamic, layered material which planted the roots of techno, progressive house, and breakbeat. Moreover, it never compromised its strictly underground sound. After all, Orbital was named after the ring road around London where most of the capital’s illegal warehouse parties secretly emerged.

‘Lush 3-1′ chimes into life after the broody opener ‘Planet of the Shapes’. ‘Lush 3-2′ then picks up the tempo, descending into the dark euphoria of ‘Impact’ and ‘Remind’. The unrelenting surge of ‘Walk Now’, with its ominous didgeridoo, eventually make way for the funk piano and helicopter rhythms of ‘Monday’. With the strength of these epics it is easy to forget sometimes what comes next – the album’s final track and coup de grace – the peerless ‘Halcyon’. It is the quintessential dance tune; all delicate piano, floaty atmospherics, and beautiful female harmonies. And that bassline.

Despite ‘Halcyon’, Orbital II doesn’t feature many of Orbital’s big hits, but it is the key long-player in their career much in the same way Technique is for New Order. Regardless, because at the time dance fans hadn’t heard anything like it. The Hartnoll brothers had proved that the genre had legs beyond the 12″. You could argue Altern-8 or Acen were the first to pioneer an artist album of rave, but who remembers them? Orbital, despite a much publicised final career performance at 2005′s Glastonbury festival, are already being lined up for headline shows this summer. Think of a world without The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, or Royksopp. They all owe it to Orbital for opening the doors of possibility, and to Orbital II – rave culture’s crown jewel.

Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible

Scathing lyrics, a sinister marriage between guitar and bass, militaristic drumming and a heavy reliance on semitones, minor thirds and clash-clash-clash dissonance. It’s THE album by the Manic Street Preachers – it’s The Holy Bible, of course.

Conceived in August 1994, this is the Manic Street Preachers‘ third studio album, after debut Generation Terrorists (more of an early singles collection – too many tracks, more filler than killer) and Gold Against The Soul (a friendlier and altogether poppier affair which boasts some of the band’s best singles). Famously, this is the final Manics album to be recorded with the now presumed-dead former guitarist, Richey Edwards. The lyrical content has been pulled apart by commentators looking for clues that could pinpoint Edwards’ sudden disappearance; his poetic, cutting and often disturbing ramblings shaped into songs by James Dean Bradfield.

The simply titled ‘Yes’ kicks off proceedings with its emphatic chorus: “I eat and I dress and I wash and I can still say thank you, puking, shaking, sinking, I still stand for old ladies, can’t shout, can’t scream, I hurt myself to get pain out”. Wow. You can’t say that they didn’t warn you about what you’re getting into when you sit down with this record. Like Radiohead, politics weigh heavily on the minds of the Manics, who sacked off their white jeans and spray-painted tops for militaristic attire during this period. Political commentary is littered liberally through all of their albums, but is perhaps at its most explicit here. Second track ‘Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart’ – the garbled title in stark contrast to that of’Yes’ – is an anti-American diatribe, as if the title didn’t tell you that already. You could never accuse the Manics of beating around the bush, that’s for sure.

‘Of Walking Abortion’ is utterly terrifying in tone and subject, in keeping with much of this album. Historical figures – Mussolini, Hitler – are scattered amongst the lyrics in the album sleeve, amidst quotations from Octave Mirbeau’s The Torture Garden. This song ends with the piercing reprise of “Who’s responsible? You fucking are”, with the incessant beat of the toms and the synchronsed refrain of the guitars burning into your ears. ‘She is Suffering’ nods to the Gold Against The Soul style, more classic-rock than faux-Soviet prog. With a textbook JDB solo, and the focus temporarily pulled away from political and social horrors, this sort of feels like a step back.

The heavy fuzz of Nicky Wire’s bass on ‘Archives Of Pain’ could have been recorded dozens of feet below the earth, and heralds the return of the incessant vitriol, coalescing with Bradfield’s guitar riff and melody line to form the biggest headfuck of your worst nightmares. Yes folks, by track five, we’re onto serial killers. Probably the most popular single from this album, ‘Faster’, is preceded by its younger, sprightlier brother in ‘Revol’, with its trade held in super-catchy chorus and infectious fuzz-riffs. ’4st 7lb’ showcases beautiful-but-haunting thoughts on the subject of anorexia. The broken chords that punctuate this track are present throughout the album, but stop dead for a heartbreaking coda: “such beautiful dignity in self abuse”. This record hammers, presses, squeezes your mind and inflicts unexpected little heart attacks.

If The Holy Bible was a colour, it would be charcoal grey. It can’t be black, because rare bright-white glints slash through the block colour and cast a faded shadow across the album as a whole. ‘Mausoleum’ does not let up the darkness, with its charred text and not-from-this-lifetime eerie feedback opening up into ‘Faster’, which is famed for its speed-of-light guitar solo.

‘This Is Yesterday’ is, to many, the record’s misnomer. It’s a bit out of place – a bit too flimsy, maybe, with a lazy hi-hat – almost like the LP runs out of steam and limps to a standstill. The song reawakens with another bit of signature JDB noodling, and then we’re back into more minor key riffing and straight-from-my-brain-onto-the-paper parlance. ‘Die In The Summertime’ is one of the stand-out tunes on The Holy Bible, proferring more images of nature and the intricacies of modern living. After listening to this, you wouldn’t feel at all intrusive peering into Richey Edward’s diaries – this is so raw and pure. The final lyric “I wanna die…” is left hanging in mid-air before a petrifying death-march squeaks into ‘The Intense Humming Of Evil’. More laconic than what’s gone before, but not for one second casting away the darkness.

After a lengthy and painful trek, we stumble, gasping, into the last track, live favourite ‘PCP’ pitching post-modern conversational wordplay with a shout-along chorus. Then that’s sort of it, and you can breathe again. The US mix takes the record to a whole new level of clarity; like you’ve listened to the original version underwater and have come up for air. The production on the UK version is cloudy, murky, and dark as hell, which definitely lends itself to the intended ambience, but the US mix is preferable if you’re after a “yeah, this is the ’90s rock guitar in action” album.

Someone I used to know once said that he listened to this album during dark and depressing days. Then times changed and he sold this album on eBay, saying he just can’t listen to it anymore. On some levels, this album is way too much to bear. On the surface, constantly, and to the core, often, it’s still fascinating me. This is the Manics at their most primal, like a hummingbird that you can’t flick away, buzzing around your brain, turning all the answers you know into questions.

Motion City Soundtrack - Commit This To Memory

From the opening salvos of ‘Attractive Today’ and lead off single ‘Everything Is Alright’ to the heartbreaking leaving note of ‘Hold Me Down’, Motion City Soundtrack (Justin Pierre, Joshua Cain, Jesse Johnson, Matt Taylor and Tony Thaxton) take you through an emotional rollercoaster. 

Informed by lead singer/guitarist Pierre’s well documented problems (I’m not going into it here – just listen to the albums), MCS’s sophomore effort (produced by Mark Hoppus of Blink 182 fame) is pure pop genius. 

Some lines come across as so silly it’s unbelievable, but listen again and they just make sense.  Take the first line heard – “I am wrecked / I am overblown / I am also fed up with the common cold” from ‘Attractive Today’. 

 

It is this “just making sense”, the feeling of connection, of being able to relate with someone else’s words, that has kept Commit This To Memory never very far away from my speakers since its release in the Summer of 2005.  Lines like “I’m a mess, I’m a wreck / I am perfect, and I have learned to accept / all my problems and short comings / Because I am so visceral, yet deeply inept”  (L.G. FUAD) and “Our Hell ends every weekend / But it’s all I have to believe to believe in” (Better Open The Door) resonated with me, and though the worlds another three and some years older, and a very, very different place (for me, in a very, very good way!), they still do. 

 

This is probably the most intelligent, yet accessible; verbose, yet understandable; cynical, yet optimistic; happy, yet melancholic album ever created.

Foo Fighters may be a stadium-filling, Grammy Award winning rock colossus but back in 1994 when this eponymous debut album was recorded not only did they not have a name, as a band they didn’t even actually exist.

A few months after Kurt Cobain died, ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl walked into a Seattle studio, laid down 15 demo tracks and created one of the finest post-punk albums ever.

Apart from a single guitar riff on one track (‘X-Static’) he played every instrument and sang every note, producing 100 copies of the recording for his friends. A frenzied record company bidding war duly followed, as well as a frantic search for band name and members. (Not even the hugely talented Grohl was going to be able to play this stuff live without some help).

This is a raw album, as befits its humble origins, with far from the polished sound of more recent efforts – the muffled vocals giving it a distinctly lo-fi feel. There may be loud, overdriven guitars on most songs but it’s also surprisingly poppy and you find yourself singing along almost from the off. ‘This Is A Call’ (the first of four singles) starts off sedately enough, but soon thunders along with Grohl’s abstract lyrics suggesting a ‘thank you’ to anyone who’s helped him along the way. It’s fast-paced, feel-good stuff, perfect for radio.

Much less friendly is ‘I’ll Stick Around’, a song said to be written about Courtney Love. There’s obviously little love lost here – “how could it be”, sings Grohl, “I’m the only one who sees your rehearsed insanity.” The chorus is clearer still: “I don’t owe you anything”, he screams. Things slow down next, with the most commercial track off the album, ‘Big Me’, showcasing Grohl’s softer side in a song about relationships (“but it’s you I fell into”).

Then a song that used to feature in Nirvana’s soundchecks, ‘Alone + Easy Target’, with lyrics vague enough for any listener to take meaning from, although they do appear to relate to Grohl’s relationship with his ex-band mates: “metronome, I want out, I’m alone and an easy target”. ‘Good Grief’ is even more oblique, but lyrics like “the thought of being ousted comes and goes” seem to be another nod to Nirvana. ‘Floaty’ is great – Grohl’s voice is heavily processed, more so than anywhere else on the album, adding to the otherworldly feel of the track. It’s heavy but laid back with its fantastic refrain of “it’s not as big as what’s flown around here” (whatever that means).

‘Weenie Beenie’, (pure grunge, fun but not a song you feel like coming back to much) precedes ‘Oh George’ – a homage to Grohl’s favourite Beatle, and with great vocals. ‘For All the Cows’, one of the best tracks on the album, starts off gently enough, with soft vocals intertwined with clean, bluesy guitar chords, then hits you firmly between the eyes. Grohl’s not a happy man, and, yet again, a certain Ms Love is to blame: “It’s funny how money allows us all to browse and be endowed”, he sings, “the wish is true, it falls into places new, the cow is you.”

‘X-Static’ and ‘Watershed’ follow, the former a slow, melancholic slice of grunge, the latter seeing Grohl let rip his disdain as to the commercialisation of punk. ‘Exhausted’ rounds the album off in mellow style until collapsing into feedback about two minutes in. There are two fantastic surges of guitar during the track that sound like the song’s really going to fly, but things never quite make it, and it brings the album to a perfect end.

It’s a testament to Grohl’s talent that it really sounds like a band playing together here when, of course, it’s ‘just’ the ex-drummer from Nirvana. Never underestimate the man with the sticks, it seems.

Funny how it all falls away… Let’s get things straight from the start. Pulp are up there with The Beatles, The Bee Gees and ABBA as the crème de la crème of world pop. Not that you’d ever hear ABBA singing about life oop north and its grimy bedsits, but that’s beside the point.

Jarvis Cocker, that strangely-sexy gangly-geek who drove a Hillman Imp and mooned MJ at the Brits, is a popstar in every sense of the word. He was a Donny Osmond for the disaffected who sang about sex, drugs, angst and old people, all through the voice of a confused teenager (aren’t we all?).

The Pulp story began in a grey and rainy city in Yorkshire, namely Sheffield. Twenty-five miles away in a similarly wet and windy town, and I’m listening to Pulp on a Sunday afternoon. My computer’s broken and I don’t have a TV. Coursework isn’t an option on a lazy day like this, so I lay, rather gormlessly, on my bed and listen to Hits. When I had a car, there was no need for mix tapes and CDs with a collection as good as this. Jarvis is the student union president we all long for, the eccentric best mate we crave, the voice of the weirdos.

We kick-start with ‘Babies’, a tale of unashamed lust and gratification. Kooky keyboards, twiddly guitar, soaring faux-strings and Jarvis singing like he’s reciting from his diary – what more can a pop devotee ask for? With every sniff, sigh and wail, my recognition is cemented. ‘Razzmatazz’ is similarly unabashed (“The trouble with your brother/He’s always sleeping with your mother”) and honest (“Are you staying at home/eating boxes of Milk Tray?”). How does he know?!

‘Lipgloss’ is a sparkly reminder of the importance we place on silly things and the necessity of them going right for us. It’s a story of a girl, dumped because she lost her lipgloss, and the degradation of her physical appearance.

Jarvis is something of a special case – he knows how us ladies are feeling, down to the note. The strawberry bubblegum guitar lick in ‘Do You Remember The First Time?’ is simply delectable and another example of sublime lyrics (“I don’t care if you screw him/just as long as you save a piece for me”).

And then there’s ‘Common People’. We all remember what we were doing when this was released, at the height of Britpop. I was a quirky ten-year-old, having my hair braided with tacky thread and playing pool at the youth club. All the kids loved this song, even though they didn’t understand it. I like to think that I did; I had a Jarvis sticker from Smash Hits on my pencil case.

‘Common People’ has stayed with me my whole teenage life, from looking at boys in ‘the youthy’ to drinking underage pints at a cheesy Britpop night at my local. It still gets regular airing now, as I form ranks with thousands of other horrible students who want to be cool, get drunk and get laid.

‘Underwear’ is my favourite song from Hits at the moment. It’s raunchy, sizzling and undeniably sexy. Jarvis thrusts and sighs with the song’s curves, and let me tell you, it’s enough to win this girl over. I’d definitely marry him if Nicky Wire was absolutely unobtainable. I’d have this song playing on the wedding night, anyway.

‘Sorted For E’s & Wizz’ holds sentiment in my heart as being the first song I ever played in my first car. It was an old Peugeot 309 – what Jarvis would have wanted – and this tune went down a treat with my passengers. That fuzzy haziness you get when waking up after a night’s heavy guzzling is encapsulated in this painkiller of a tune.

If you haven’t realised yet, Pulp is music for occasion and memories – life to soundtrack the music, if you like. ‘Disco 2000′ is possibly the foremost example of a nostalgia-inducing piece, a lament to unrequited childhood love. Jarvis shows yet again that romance is his weakness, and most of us can take something from the “Won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown?” refrain.

The album takes on a suitably downbeat façade from here on in, beginning with the somewhat cheesy ‘Something Changed’. It’s still sweet and the sentiment is there but you feel it’s a bit over the top on Jarvis’ part. You’re constantly expecting him to slag off her clothes or the way she eats, but he never does.

Not to worry, though, as ‘Help The Aged’ is up next. Jarvis reads the human condition with devilish accuracy – “You can dye your hair but it’s the one thing you can change”. I can’t think of any other bands who have written a song about the difficulties of being a pensioner (and not hurriedly demoted it to b-side status).

‘This Is Hardcore’ is every bit as dirty – nay, pornographic (“I wanna make a movie so let’s star in it together”) – as its little sister ‘Underwear’. This steamy epic is Pulp’s real showpiece, combining dangerous, smouldering strings with a complex episodic structure. Muted trumpets and swirling keys give a fifties feel but Jarvis – suited and booted in my head – brings it bang up to date. It’s a completely different feel to the lacklustre plod of ‘A Little Soul’ – the sorry story of a Dad who’s messed his life up, telling his son not to follow the same path.

‘Party Hard’ is a great dalliance in electro-dance-pop, kind of in the style of Blur’s ‘Girls and Boys’ but with an endearing vocoded vocal in the chorus. I know for a fact that this song regularly features on the playlist of an ultra-cool club in my hometown, and I also know that 95% of the people in there will dance along thinking, “Who the hell is this?”

The final handful of tracks on Hits are, unfortunately, of much less merit than their predecessors. I reckon that’s the downside of single collections – the dwindling last gasps of a band, the worst songs that they love the most – are always included. I’m not too bothered, mind – as soon as I hear the openings of most Pulp songs, I’m itching to go and have a rummage in the charity shop. Hits is a must for those who are even vaguely interested in indie-pop, the style of the nineties or good honest story-telling.

http://www.pulp.co.uk